Teenagers often feel misunderstood. It’s a hard time of life – somewhere between childhood and adulthood, not quite one or the other – with a future that is at once uncertain, exciting, and overwhelming. It’s no wonder that they can seem ungrateful for what’s going on in the present – and that’s something researchers have found repeatedly. Youth Radio’s Rayana Godfrey decided to take that presumption on in this report on the science of.

* * *

RAYANA GODFREY: My mom would kill me if I ever acted like the kid in this popular YouTube video:

TEEN (from YouTube): I’m going to run away, you’ll never see me again. I swear.

This teenage boy is throwing a tantrum because his mom said he couldn’t play his videogames anymore. To you, it might seem a little excessive – there are worse things than losing game privileges. But according to scientific studies, his lack of gratitude makes him pretty normal. In gratitude surveys, the only people who score lower than teenagers are people with post-traumatic stress disorder.

GIACOMO BONO: I mean, it’s just unavoidable.

Giacomo Bono, a professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills, studies gratitude among adolescents. He rejects the argument that teens’ lack of gratitude is just a natural part of adolescence. In his view, the environment plays a big role.

BONO: One of the reasons would be the commercial culture that young people are finding themselves in. Having to be a consumer is something that young people are starting to do without even understanding it all.

Luckily for teenagers, Bono says feelings of gratitude – and an awareness of things to be grateful for – can change over time. One of the ways to measure that change is through a survey called the GQ6. It’s a questionnaire with only six statements to rank on a scale of “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” For example, “I have so much in life to be thankful for.” The highest possible score is a 42; most teens score in the upper-20s.

Something didn’t seem right about that score. I consider myself a grateful 17-year-old, and when I took the survey, I scored a 37 – pretty high no matter what, but much higher than the average for my age group. And I’m not the only grateful teenager I know. So I started asking other people my age if they had anything to be grateful for.

ASHA: I am grateful for my family, my college scholarships…

SAYRE QUEVADO: To have a job, so that I can put food on the table for myself…

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT 1: Music…

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT 2: Love…

JOELLE: The chance I get to wake up…

DEREK WILLIAMS: And I’m grateful for understanding.

I wanted to know how these teens would do on the survey. I started handing it out to people I know from work and from my church youth group.

Obviously, it’s not a random sample. And it’s not a big enough group to be considered scientific. But I certainly got some interesting results: The young people I interviewed, particularly those in their late teens, score much higher in gratitude then teens had in published studies. Seventeen-year-old Bianca Brooks had a score of 42.

If we’d given her this survey a few years ago, her score might not have been so high.

BROOKS: When I was in middle school and I was just such a selfish, self-centered person, I didn’t really care…

But Brooks says as she got older, she got closer to her religion and her outlook on gratitude changed.

BROOKS: I’m so grateful for everything that God has given me.

Brooks is religious. So is that the reason she’s grateful? I went back over the surveys and was shocked to discover that the highest scoring teenagers I talked to said they weren’t religious at all. An example is Salim Boykin, 16, and this is what he said when asked why it’s important to be grateful:

SALIM BOYKIN: If you’re not grateful, you’ll go through life either depressed or just sad not really knowing why.

The teens I surveyed all felt like that was true. But Bono says they’re still not the norm – for a lot of teenagers, the most important thing is…

BONO: …to acquire a thousand friends on Facebook.

So why are my results so skewed toward gratitude? Bono says it might be because all the teens I interviewed are part of communities: Some are involved with church, others with Youth Radio.

BONO: And where there’s a strong sense of community, where young people feel at home, that tends to produce gratitude too. When you find something you love, you know, that’s a good achievement in life.

Bono says many young people are less grateful because they don’t yet know what their purpose is. In other words, my peers may not be ungrateful people – they’re just still figuring out what to be thankful for.

For Youth Radio, I’m Rayana Godfrey.

This story was originally published at TurnStyle News, a project of Youth Radio in Oakland.

RICHMOND, Calif. – You may have heard of “cyber bullying,” but an even more deadly trend is happening in Richmond and across the country: cyber gang-banging. Young people are using social media as a platform to represent their gang affiliation or their neighborhood. Sometimes the violence spills from the net to the streets and in some cases it has resulted in death. There have been several cases of people who posted comments on Facebook or created YouTube videos that disrespected a rival gang, only to be gunned down in the streets weeks later.

In Richmond, Calif., gangsters, wannabe-gangsters and felons are using social media to incite or glorify violence and to make threats. And even though the drama is happening online, it has very real repercussions.

On Valentine’s Day 2010, Marcel Buggs, 19, entered the New Gethsemane Church of God in Christ with a gun and opened fire on the congregation. His alleged target was a member of a rival street gang in North Richmond. But Buggs accidentally shot the gang member’s two brothers. Neither of the brothers was killed, but the tragedy made national news headlines and alarmed community members.

Months before the shooting, Buggs had posted a YouTube video acknowledging that he was part of a gang and boasting that he would attack his rivals. The video was used as court evidence against Buggs, who was ultimately found guilty of attempted murder.

Another YouTube music video made by the group So Smerkish ENT from North Richmond is called “Wat We Do It 4.” The video contains explicit lyrics, multiple references to gun violence and explicit drug usage. The chorus of the song goes:

Speed what you do it for, I do it for the nickel.

What you bussin’ with, the nickel.

Where you lurkin’, South Central.

All day every day, we rockin’ out a rental.

Bounce out on niggas, we ain’t shooting out no windows.

For those who aren’t familiar with this type of slang, “the nickel” is a 45-caliber handgun, sometimes referred to as a “four nickel,” four short for “40” and nickel slang for “five.” “South Central” means South Central Richmond, which is the neighborhood being targeted. “Rocking out a rental” means rental cars are being used to commit crimes so that the license plate, vehicle number or description can’t be traced.

In the video, a young man is heard saying, ”get whacked like Rickdell, Cool and Rio”— a reference to known rappers from South Central Richmond who were killed.

Another person in the video says, ”Cool was ducking around the car just like a bitch.” The line describes what went on that night in what appears to be a clear admission of involvement in the young man’s murder.

In Richmond and across the country, the music video has evolved beyond a source of entertainment. It’s an admission of guilt — a song that describes what took place during a shootout – and a warning of violence to come.

One of the most popular videos is “South Side Richmond,” by Laz Tha Boy, a tribute to South Richmond, the 35th Street neighborhood and the Pullman Point housing project. It has received more than 200,000 views on YouTube.

The lyrics aren’t as incriminating as in the “What They Do It 4” video, but they are just as violent:

This South Side Richmond, yeah I’m from the 30s,

Hundreds on the K, hand thangs with the 30s.

Heard that nigga speaking on me, if I see him I’ma murk him.

Three round burst leave a nigga face burgundy.

“Hundreds on the K” refers to a 100-round drum clip on an AK 47 assault rifle. “Hand thangs with the 30s” are handguns with 30-round clips. Some people call it a “hand thang” because it’s a slick way refer to a pistol, without the police knowing. ”When I see him I’ma murk him” means that when the rapper sees his rival, he’s going to kill him; and “burgundy” is a reference to blood.

In the song’s second verse, a featured rapper named Tay Way continues the theme of violence:

Me and my niggas out riding.

Niggas dying when we take off.

The message here is clear, and in a city like Richmond, lyrics like these aren’t just music or poking fun. Real people have died.

Gonzalo Rucobo is the co-founder of Bay Area Peacekeepers, a violence prevention program that operates in Richmond and San Pablo. Rucobo, an ex-gang member, is now regarded by many as a hero for his work with youth in the community. When I asked him about cyber-banging, he immediately knew what I was talking about.

“It’s been around for a while now,” Rucobo said. “The big kinda burst of it hittin’ the community was with MySpace. That’s when we began to start noticing that a lot of gang-affiliated [stuff], like a lot of red or blue or neighborhood stuff would be on there.”

Rucobo says that cyber gang-banging serves two purposes: It gives individuals notoriety and it allows for people to communicate with rival gang members in a virtual environment.

“So individuals would let some of their enemies actually log on and accept them as a friend [and] then they would go back and forth,” says Rucobo. ”Not only that, but they’re… going on there and saying, ‘Yeah, we chased you down, that’s why we shot you.’ Or they even go as far as saying, ‘We took out so-and-so.’”

When asked what cyber-banging meant to him, David Serano-Valdivia, 15, a student at Richmond High School said, ”It means you’re down for a certain crew or a certain gang and you post it on the Internet to make it public.”

”There is a lot of cyber-banging in Richmond,” Serano-Valdivia said, in middle school and especially in high school. “It’s weird, because what people won’t do in public, they seem to be able to do easier in the privacy of their own home.

“There’s one guy I’ve seen around, and it’s crazy because he’s the shyest person… but on his Facebook he’s always posting, ‘This gang is better than that gang’ or ‘We’re taking over,’ or this and that. It’s a complete shock because you wouldn’t imagine it from a person like that.”

Rucobo agreed that while there are some “hardcore individuals” posting gang-related content to the web, not everyone cyber-banging is an actual gang member. And in fact, said Rucobo, most seasoned criminals know better than to expose their activities online.

“We began to start seeing the pattern of individuals that really didn’t portray [being a gangster] when they were in school or in the community,” said Rucobo, “but when they got home and behind the screen they were actually able to make it seem like they were this big person, or they were this character…without really knowing the consequences.”

Those consequences, says Rucobo, can mean going to jail or getting real people hurt or killed because of what others post online.

“Today a lot of individuals do it for fame and glory. They think that they’re gonna be on American Gangster. They think that all of a sudden they’re gonna have a documentary on them, or their clique’s gonna come out there on [the TV show] Gangland or somethin’ like that,” he said. “But there are individuals out there that don’t play like that. Once you say somebody’s disrespectful, then they’re looking for you and they’re on the hunt.”

In fact, young people in Richmond have more to worry about than just rival gang members or criminals looking for retribution over something that was said on the Internet.

“A lot of our youth don’t understand that they could be incriminated [legally] by the things that they’re putting out there,” Rucobo said.

A law enforcement officer who spoke to Richmond Pulse under the condition of anonymity said the police follow cyber-banging and other online communication.

“Social media has evolved as the primary way of communicating in our culture,” he said. “We know that a good way to get intelligence about people, like what’s [happening] on the street, is to follow social media websites.

The cops, said the investigator, have a right to identify or take action against individuals based on what they put out over the Internet, despite the fact that some seem to think that on the web, anything goes.

“Freedom of speech is very important and it has to be protected,” said the officer. “[But] there are also laws that make it illegal to threaten the safety of somebody, and that’s really where you cross the line… It becomes a violation of the penal code.”

“YouTube videos and Facebook videos that are public often show very recognizable people making threats, talking about things that just happened or things that are going to happen in the future,” he explained, “and these are very important ways to engage or to stop violence from happening.”

Berkeley resident Rita Moreno is a bona-fide show business legend, one of the first people to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony award. She’ll be 80 in December, but boy, you wouldn’t know it from her performance in her autobiographical show at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup. The play was postponed from June to give Moreno time to recover from knee-replacement surgery, which has slowed down her dancing somewhat, but her energy and stage presence.

Moreno doesn’t mention her awards at all in her two and a half hours on the stage. That’s a pity, because her acceptance speeches, viewable on YouTube, are actually pretty great, particularly her giddy speechlessness at the Oscars.

The show follows her life and career ever since she came over from Puerto Rico to New York at the age of five, but Moreno skips over plenty of stuff along the way, including (or rather excluding) anything after the 1970s. For someone who’s been in show business more than 60 years, that’s more than understandable.

Because the rest of the show is roughly chronological, for a while it seems like she’s skipping her Oscar-winning turn in West Side Story too, and the omission is distracting, but it turns out she’s just saving it for near the end. It’s a curious choice from a narrative standpoint, but it gives an opportunity for a climactic song and dance number “America” before the schmaltzier closer “This Is All I Ask.”

Based on hours of conversations with Moreno about her life, the show was written by artistic director Tony Taccone, who’s making his playwriting debut in a one-two punch between this and Ghost Light, a play about California Shakespeare Theater artistic director Jonathan Moscone’s memories of his father, the late San Francisco mayor George Moscone, that recently debuted at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and comes to Berkeley Rep in January. Although a veteran director and neophyte playwright, Taccone cedes directing duty to David Galligan, an old hand at solo cabaret shows.

This is Moreno’s third time playing Berkeley Rep, after excellent star turns in Master Class in 2004 and The Glass Menagerie in 2006, but this is obviously a very different, much more personal piece. While it feels like a solo show, it isn’t quite one. Two young hunky guys (Ray Garcia and Salvatore Vassallo) hardly ever speak but help out considerably on the dance numbers and occasionally sing backup. Although there’s certainly more story than song and this isn’t a cabaret act, it’s peppered with musical numbers from various points in her career, including a Spanish dance she learned as a kid from Rita Hayworth’s uncle; “Broadway Rhythm,” Gene Kelly’s big dance fantasia from Singin’ in the Rain (a movie she was in, but not in that scene); and a very campy, heavily accented version of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” the big number from her 1975 Tony Award-winning turn as rubbish cabaret performer Googie Gomez in Terrence McNally’s play The Ritz. There’s an adorable section in which Moreno plays her recurring little-girl character Pandora the Brat from the ’70s children’s series TheElectric Company, singing a song about how much she loves to hate things.

There are also occasional snippets of films she was in and other videos such as a very funny Electric Company musical sketch between her and Morgan Freeman and a surprisingly dirty Sesame Street outtake (at least I hope it’s an outtake) with Oscar the Grouch propositioning her. (Lighting and video design is by Alexander V. Nichols.) Aside from their own entertainment value, these help cover some of Moreno’s many costume changes, in elegant getups designed by Annie Smart. Generally speaking, the show is heavily supplemented with projections: the ship she came in on, the New York tenements of her youth, an early Hollywood screen test.

She describes all the cooking smells from around the world in her building as a kid (and plays all her neighbors in a variety of voices), and talks about her mother’s multiple marriages and schemes for getting out of the barrio, the hilarious advice of Marilyn Monroe’s former acting coach, dating Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley at the same time (though much more about the former than the latter), and the constant frustrations of only being offered stereotyped roles.

At times the show feels patchy, more a collection of anecdotes than an arc per se. The transitions between musical numbers and the narrative are especially tenuous, as if the songs are included only because if you’re going to do a show about Rita Moreno starring Rita Moreno they ought to be there somehow. But the whole package is sold beautifully due to Moreno’s magnetic charisma and sharp comic delivery. Even the occasional flubbed line is handled with grace. When it comes right down to it, it’s a pleasure to hear her story any old way she wants to tell it.

Some of us listen to that one favorite song over and over again. And some of us scour the world over for new music. Well, if you want to broaden your horizons, all you need to do is tune in to AllDayPlay.fm from Oakland’s Youth Radio. It’s a streaming station DJ’d by local artists, musicians, and music lovers. All Day Play editor Brandon McFarland joined KALW News’ Holly Kernan to discuss what’s on his playlist this week.

* * *

HOLLY KERNAN: And first off, let’s talk about big news last week, which was that Troy Davis was executed in Georgia. I’m wondering, how did the hip hop community react or mobilize around that?

BRANDON MCFARLAND: That was my big question after the execution. There was a lot of comments on Twitter before, and almost to the last minute, and after the execution from this one artist named Killer Mike who had a really compelling speech that was really moving. Not much else out of Twitter banter from the entire hip-hop community.

KERNAN: And did that surprise you?

MCFARLAND: It did. I would have liked to have seen a benefit concert or at least more coverage through proper news channels, but you know Twitter is where breaking news happens these days.

KERNAN: And so many prominent people, politicians included, argued that Troy Davis should have a new trial and Davis maintained his innocence until he was executed on September 21st last week.

MCFARLAND: I think over this year we’ve seen a lot of racism happen. I would just really like for hip-hop to make a united front to bring some awareness to it, similar to how we did in the ‘90s after the riots in L.A. Or even further back in the ‘60s and ‘70s where wars were happening and the music was sort of a center to bring communities together, to bring America together.

KERNAN: And, Brandon, there’s a big movement to stop the death penalty, or at least to place a moratorium on these executions. Is there music that is happening around that movement?

MCFARLAND: Yeah. There are hip-hop songs floating around the blogosphere, but they aren’t from artists who have that voice, have that star power to really grab the masses of people. They’re sort of like independent artists, making songs and making YouTube videos about, you know, Troy Davis and other issues. But we don’t see the Lil Waynes out there. We don’t see the stars. And I would like to see that.

KILLER MIKE (from Troy Davis execution protest rally): I’m angry. It’s unfair that my grandfather was born in 1922, my father was a former police officer born in 1955, and the story that they tell me about the police brutalizing black men in 1933, ‘43, ‘53, ‘63, ‘73, ‘83, ‘93, 2003 and will be 2013 – until we stand up and say enough is enough…

MCFARLAND: And he was really very passionate about it. And you don’t see that a lot in rappers. They usually play it pretty cool, but you can tell that he’s very emotional because it’s his hometown. And the South in general had to experience racism at a level that I, being from California, or, say, a person being from New York, doesn’t really get to experience on a day-to-day basis.

KERNAN: So what other trends are you following this week, Brandon? Maybe in a little lighter news.

MCFARLAND: I definitely was trying to recap some of my favorite albums this summer, as we’re wrapping up the summer, and one of the standout records was this bassist turned producer-singer by the name of Stephen Bruner. He’s played with a bunch of jazz bands. Erykah Badu is probably one of the most noted that he’s played with. He put out an album with producer Flying Lotus, out of L.A. And it’s just an awesome jazz album. I think I fell in love with jazz all over again listening to this because it sort of teeters on electro-pop. So it’s electro-pop meets John Coltrane or Herbie Hancock. In general, I think that it’s a time right now where a bunch of artists are experimenting and collaborating with each other and it’s really a great time for music.

KERNAN: And finally, can you give us some sort of shout out to a band locally. Something we should know about that’s happening here in the Bay Area?

MCFARLAND: Definitely. There’s a duo from Oakland, California named Main Attractions who are one of those artists that are just experimenting a lot and mixing genres. This is like a mix of rap music and I would say indie rock almost. And electro-pop. It’s a genre mix of the both.

This article was originally published at The Idiolect.
Half-drow assassin Nigel Blackthorn and Petula the Space Pirate walk into La Val’s tavern, still much wearied from their quest to lay siege to Castle Dashwood and in need of rest before embarking… …

Most of us love a good fairytale. And then there’s the tale of Dyhemia Young, a teenager from San Francisco’s Bayview district.

Young was invited to the coveted wild card invitation to the Susan Polgar Girls’ Invitational, a prestigious chess tournament held at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. But there was a problem: Young couldn’t be found. Her home life had been unstable for a couple years, and none of her old numbers or addresses worked. So mentors, teachers, and even the police got involved in the search.

They finally tracked her down at a group home – a foster home – in East Palo Alto, with less than a week to go until the start of the tournament. But there was another problem: Dyhemia couldn’t actually afford to go to the tournament.

Luckily, a story about her on the front page of the LA Timesled to a flood of donations that paved her way to Texas.

It sounds like “happily ever after,” but the tale of the San Francisco Chess Cinderella is actually a lot more complicated. KALW’s Jen Chien has this story.

* * *

SUSAN POLGAR: Don’t make the move – this is the most important part of it – don’t make the move until you see me in front of your board.

JEN CHIEN: Ten girls are sitting in front of 10 chess boards at a long bank of tables. Most of them are under 10 years old, in pigtails and headbands, but at the far end of the tables sits a lone teenager with stylish side-swept bangs. That’s Dyhemia Young.

I’m at the Norcal House of Chess in Fremont, watching a “simul,” or simultaneous exhibition. That means all the girls at the table tonight are playing against one chess star. Tonight, that star is Grandmaster Susan Polgar. Cameras are rolling, taking video that will later be posted on Polgar’s many chess websites and YouTube. Amidst the hoopla, Young sits calmly, waiting to make her first move.

POLGAR: So, what I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna start the first round. I’m gonna start right here with Dyhemia, and then move on…

One of the people wielding a camera tonight is Lisa Suhay, who’s flown in from Virginia to attend the event. Suhay, a children’s book author and youth chess organizer is behind a lot of the online buzz about Young. The two met at a tournament in Texas. Actually Suhay’s the one who contacted the LA Times, which led to Young being splashed across its front page.

LISA SUHAY: I called the editor.

Suhay came up with the “Chess Cinderella” name, and she’s been working it all over the internet. She even calls herself Young’s “Fairy Godmother” in one article. Suhay believes that continued media attention can save Young from getting lost in the system like so many foster kids do.

SUHAY: It’s a big system, it’s a slow-moving system. Even though all of the people care very much, they’re stuck with the system. I think it’s important to keep the spotlight on a positive story and on the fact that when everyone got together and helped this one child, it had this huge positive ripple effect.

Young entered the foster care system two years ago after some serious conflicts with her mom. Since then, she’s been bounced from placement to placement, even spending a short stint in juvenile hall (she disobeyed a court mandate to return to her mom’s house). Playing chess helped her find some stability. Her mentor Adisa Banjoko runs the Hip Hop Chess Federation at John O’Connell High School. He sees the game as a way Young can focus her energy. Even though Young received a scholarship to Texas Tech through Polgar’s tournament, Banjoko is not so sure more media attention is what she needs.

ADISA BANJOKO: A lot of pressure was put on her to try to be this or be that, and everybody was trying to turn her journey into a fairy tale. And her journey is very real, her journey is not over.

Young is currently living at the East Palo Alto Teen Home, awaiting yet another foster home placement. She just started her junior year at a new school, and though she’s working hard, statistics for foster kids like her are not favorable. Nationally, youth in foster care are 44% less likely than their peers to graduate from high school. As they get older, it gets even more daunting. In California, 65% of youth aging out of foster care have no place to live. Young will age out in less than three years – a stark reality compared with the Cinderella story that’s been attached to her.

Sheila George operates the group home where Young currently lives.

SHEILA GEORGE: I don’t know about the Cinderella part of this chess, but my main thing now is to get her back on target for school, get her grounded in school, so she can then think.

In the kitchen, an employee is frying chicken and potatoes in a huge cast iron pan to feed the four foster girls who live there. They’re all teenagers. One has a baby.

Young’s mom is there, too – for a visit and a meeting with the social worker, therapist, and attorney on her daughter’s case. She’s uneasy about Young’s newfound fame.

DYHEMIA’S MOTHER: I’m not too sure about the media, I’m not really thrilled about that. ‘Cause I don’t want them to pull her in the wrong direction, might pull her in the wrong direction, she might stumble on something. She’s only 15.

YOUNG: This is my dresser, got my teddy bear… And I like parrots ‘cause they talk a lot of mess…

At an age when girls need stability, Young doesn’t have much. She tells me when she needed glasses, it took two years to arrange for a prescription. She worries about where she’ll live next month. For the moment, she shares an upstairs bedroom with a girl she’s known only a few months.

YOUNG: This is my drawer, this is where I keep basically all my chess containments. This is my board, my Lubbock bag, my hair product, Chess Master edition…

The room is small but tidy – typical teenage girl: a flat iron near a big mirror. Snacks stashed near the head of her bed. Young also has mementos from the chess tournament up on the walls.

YOUNG: She got her side with her decorations, my side with my decorations, my newspapers, the signs, “Welcome Dyhemia Young, we support you” – I got that from when I was on my way to Texas, when I got off the plane. I had three posters, people was giving me flowers, posters, taking pictures with me I’m so famous!

For a child who can feel forgotten, it’s kind of a dream come true. Still, with so many people focusing their attention on her, Young says it’s hard not to feel the pressure.

YOUNG: It’s pressure to be the person that I want to be, pressure to have my little sister look up to me and be the person that she wants me to be, and then it’s pressure just to be in the system and have them on my back, and be the person that they want me to be. I’m like: Can I just be myself?

BANJOKO: If she can finish high school, I think she can go out and be a really devastating person at whatever she chooses. But the real tragedy, and we have to be honest about this, is that if she does not graduate, if her household is not made more stable, she absolutely could be another statistic. And that’s my fear, that all of this hype, and all of these gifts are just gonna end up with her being incarcerated, or worse, and I don’t want that for her, I don’t want that for her at all.

Young has her own thoughts as to what kind of ending – fairytale or not – her story should have.

YOUNG: I more identify with the “diamond in the rough” more than the Cinderella story. I mean, some people may look at my story and think, “Well, she is kind of a Cinderella.” No people, that’s just my name, that is not what I am, that is not who I am. I am a diamond in the rough.

CHIEN: Why is that more accurate?

YOUNG: Because a diamond has to be pressure put on, and you have to mold it and shape it and shine it to get it to be a diamond. And I’m still going through my pressure and molding and you know, all the shining and stuff. Probably my shining will be more in my college years… But no, I’m going through all of that to become that diamond and when I become that diamond y’all, I will be one of the top lawyers, one of the best judges, or even on the Supreme Court. Y’all going see me again, don’t worry.

Back in Fremont, at the Norcal House of Chess, the simul is about to begin.

In chess, every move opens up new opportunities and obstacles. The best players look far ahead in the game, considering all of their possibilities. Young has made it this far. She eyes the board intently. Her hand inches slowly toward a chess piece and hovers above it for a moment…